Manhunt continues for other JI members
Manhunt continues for other JI members
Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Makassar, South Sulawesi
A senior police officer said on Saturday that police were still
hunting for suspected members of the regional terrorist group
Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).
Chief Detective Police Comr. Gen. Erwin Mappaseng said the
manhunt was still going on for four JI members who formed part of
a group recently nabbed in Jakarta and Semarang, Central Java.
"For now, the hunt is still underway for four more members of
the group. But apart from the four, we can't tell how many more
there may be, as we have yet to find out the total number of JI
people," he told reporters in Makassar, South Sulawesi.
Mappaseng also declined to give more information on a report
earlier that the group had begun an operation targeting five
national political leaders.
"It is not appropriate for me to disclose the information now,
but I can assure you that President Megawati Soekarnoputri is not
one of their targets," he said, adding the group would also
target public places.
The alleged leader of JI, Abu Bakar Ba'asyir is currently
standing trial in Jakarta on several charges including an alleged
plot to assassinate Megawati when she was vice president.
The plot to target national leaders was apparently gleaned
from JI members arrested earlier in the week. Police also seized
explosives and firearms that were likely going to be used to
support the plan, Mappaseng said.
On Friday, police announced they had arrested nine suspected
members of JI, the regional terrorist organization blamed for
last year's Bali bombings. One of the suspects, identified as
Ikhwanuddin, alias Asim, 28, committed suicide during
interrogation at a police post in East Jakarta.
On Tuesday afternoon police arrested two other suspects in
Bekasi, West Java. One of them, Pranata Yuda, alias Mustofa
reportedly admitted that he was a former head of JI's Mantiqi
(regional commander) and is currently the head of a working
committee at the JI headquarters in Jakarta.
In Semarang, Central Java, police recovered over 1,000 bomb
detonators, 900 kilograms of potassium chlorate, 160 kilograms of
TNT, 65 PETN detonators (a high-explosive substance), 11
shoulder-launched rockets, more than 20,000 rounds of ammunition,
two M-16 assault rifles, timers, maps and documents.
Commenting on the arrest, Mappaseng said the Mustofa group was
not involved in the deadly Bali blast or last December's bombing
in Makassar. It was also not implicated in the explosions in
Poso, Central Sulawesi, last Thursday.
However, he asserted that the group had an indirect link with
the alleged perpetrators of the Bali blast. "They share a common
vision of waging a war to defend Islam," Mappaseng said.
He said that the entire JI network in Indonesia only began to
be unraveled after the police embarked on an all-out
investigation with international help in the wake of the Bali
bombings.
Thus far, the police have caught more than 100 members of JI,
50 of whom were allegedly linked in some way to the Bali bombings
that claimed over 200 lives.